Saturday, September 29, 2012

I've been more active at my painting table this week, and I've got a lot done. Here are four more models that I completed. But in all honesty, one of the models I did weeks ago and haven't gotten around to taking a picture of it. So I painted three more, and photographed four.

These are all Reaper models, the monsters are from the Bones line and the Viking is from Dark Heavens Legends. These pictures are okay, but not that good. Since they're not for a major project I'm not going to retake them. You can get an idea of what they're like, though the colors are a little off.

Here's a minotaur I plan to add to my Song of Blades and Heroes beastman warband. I really like this model. I wanted to make him dark but not black, which proved harder than I thought. He either looked like a primer-covered model or came out too light. Here's what I ended up with:

Next is a so-called "cave troll." I guess that's what I'll use him for. He has a nice rocky texture to his back. I painted his hair green, like moss, but it's not too obvious in these pictures. Also, his skin tone is a little bluish and not as gray as these pictures make it seem.

The last Bones model is a werewolf. I'll eventually use this one in Empire of the Dead, but he can fit into a lot of different lists.

Finally, I played a game of Saga and really enjoyed it. So I picked up a special model for my Viking leader. Meet Gunther One-Eye:

I liked this model and the name that I came up with for him (he's missing an eye, which I clumsily left out of the picture). In fact, I gave him a small part in my next Viking novel (which should hopefully be published end of year or early 2013).

So that's it for now. I'll probably "go dark" for a bit while I wait for my WW2 US riflemen to arrive. I'm expanding my 28mm WW2 collection so I can get in larger games of Bolt Action.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Last Sunday I played a game of pulp adventure with my friends, Tim and Rob. We used LotR SBG rules for the game with a few minor adjustments. By adding in rules from the various "Legends" books we had just about every situation covered.

Tim has a big collection of desert stuff, and mummy stuff in particular. So we played a scenario reminiscent of the Mummy movies. I've played this particular scenario once before and it's fun. We're planning on running it for a larger group of four (four players and Tim as NPC). Tim has all the figures, but only has three "teams" created.

I've been wanting to start a pulp figure collection, and now's the time! So I now present to you my "Stereotypically Evil Oriental Pulp Characters."

Here's the team together. I'll give you the low-down on each after this.

I would call them "Team Primaries" because I noticed I painted them red, yellow, and blue. Too late to fix that. Besides the name is not suitably "pulp." So I now present:

The Very Evil Kang Xiang Long, master mind and pet owner!

Xiang Long is a Chinese Qigong master and mystic. He seeks knowledge of the ancient mummy magics of Egypt. He also quests for colorfast bleach to preserve the brightness of his robes. But that's a different adventure.

Miss Kang serves her father in carrying out his nefarious plots. Educated at Harvard, she's an automatic bitch. And she has a gun! No one knows how old she or her father really are. Ancient Chinese secret.... or worse? (gasp!)

The Very Evil Kang Xiang Long has a disciple in martial artist, Chan Li.

Despite the startling resemblance to Bruce Li, there is no connection. However, Chan Li suffers from a strange madness that causes him to tear away any shirt placed on him. He's just ripped! Chan Li has found a great master in The Very Evil Kang Xiang Long, learning the deeper mysteries of the School of Washboard Abs fighting techniques.

The final member is the silent but deadly Zhou Bao.

He is new to The Very Evil Kang Xiang Long's team. Zhou Bao's motives remain a mystery, but he is unquestioningly loyal. He removes his shirt to try to be as cool as Chan Li. Since he lacks an abdomen, this usually fails.

So that's the pulp group. I went with a Chinese theme. They are all Reaper models except Zhou Bao, which is a West Wind Samurai Wars figure. At first I was torn between a Chinese or Japanese theme. So I picked up a few more Reaper models with a Japanese flavor. Here they are:

I figured they could be justified as reinforcements that The Very Evil Kang Xiang Long has brought in from Japanese occupied Manchuria, or that he just has buddies from Japan. Right now, these models aren't part of the team. The geisha, who is really an old Edo prostitute, could be used as a "Wanton wench" character from the LotHS book.

I'm excited to see what rules Tim will make for these guys. As martial artists, I think that their hands can count as hand weapons in combat. I also think that every time you refer to my boss, The Very Evil Kang Xiang Long, you must say the whole name or you lose. He's not Kang, not Xiang Long, no TVEKXL. He's The Very Evil Kang Xiang Long. If you don't say that, you lose the game! Such is his sinister power!

Monday, September 24, 2012

I can't believe it has taken me nearly all of September to complete this little army. I guess I've erroneously concluded that small scale means super fast painting. To a degree this is true. However, there's still a lot of models to cover, with lots of detail, and neatness still counts. Basing these guys is half the battle too. It's a little more challenging with multi-figure bases, at least for me.

Enough whining! Here are some pictures of the Dark Elves. First up are a few different views of the army all together. I couldn't decide which set up would show them better. So now you have two shots of them. You need to enlarge the pictures to see the details, of course.

All told there are 16 stands and about 46 models here. I've got units of great swords, spears, crossbows, and cavalry. I've added in a monster, a "dragon man" and its handler, as well as two commanders and a wizard. Here are some detailed shots of the army.

I think you can tell which pictures are which units. I made my leader units different colors in case I wanted to run two different Dark Elf armies. My theme colors are dark red with silver and dull orange accents. The blue leader, who turned out to be a chick, was to be my main general. I was thinking the different color would make her easy to see on the battle field.

This was a fun army to paint, though I wasn't inspired to start it. Maybe that's why it took so long. But once I started working on it, I found myself really enjoying these models. They're excellent sculpts with lots of detail. Like all dark elves, there are female models mixed in with the males, wearing the obligatory useless armor. I kept my painting faithful to the model, no matter how impractical. At 15mm scale showing some midriff is not that exciting. But whatever.

So I'm done with all my 15mm Mighty Armies stuff for now. I plan to reinforce each of my armies before moving on to new ones. Right now, Mighty Armies isn't high on my "game time list." So it'll be a while before I get to them. Still, I really like this line and will certainly expand to more armies in the future.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

This must be the year of going small for me. When I converted to 15mm for a lot of my games, I thought I couldn't go any smaller. But now I find myself the proud owner of WW2 US Armored Infantry in micro armor scale. I don't know how small that is, but it's small!

These are all GHQ models from the Combat Command boxed set, US 1944 Armored Infantry Combat Team. I threw in an extra blister of Sherman tanks. What you see above are:

9 infantry stands

6 jeeps

2 bazooka team stands

1 M20 armored car

3 M8 Greyhound armored cars

1 MA41 mortar carrier

3 M10 tank destroyers

8 M4A3 Sherman tanks

8 M3A1 half tracks

That's a pretty sizable forces For those who are unfamiliar with micro armor scale, here is a picture of the force next to a US penny.

That's pretty small! While painting that small was not too difficult, and American armor is s cinch to paint, assembly was a massive pain. The armored cars had to have their cupolas and machine guns glued on. The same with the M3A1 half-tracks. I couldn't tell the gun barrels from flash. There was a ton of flash on these models. I'm not sure if I just got lucky or all GHQ models come like that. Anyway, putting these together tested my patience.

I based the vehicles, simply because I think that will protect the models. I think visually they look better without bases, but the gun barrels bend easily or those delicately glued machine guns will pop off at a touch. I went with a very powdery flock for the bases. Static grass would look like elephant grass or worse.

Storage for this army couldn't be easier. Everything fits right back in the box that it came in! Here's the force in storage, lucky penny included. There's still space to expand.

I plan on using these models with Blitzkrieg Commander, thought they can go with a lot of different rules. Since everything here was pretty cheap, I'll probably get a few more forces to have different choices. Some friends have played Flames of War in this scale, and I'd be willing to try that out too!

So now I've got WW2 covered in micro armor, 15 mm, and 28 mm.That's good for a guy who had nothing for WW2 just over a year ago. All that's left is to conquer 20mm. Not that I plan to do that, but I should never rule out anything too soon.